FOOD SITUATION IN EUROPE

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23974, 15 June 1943, Page 2

FOOD SITUATION IN EUROPE

AXIS DRIVE FOR CROPS MEASURES IN ITALY AND GERMANY LONDON, April 22. From the Axis “spring campaign” for agriculturists we can gather some significant pointers to the food situation in Europe, writes F, Werth, in the “Daily Telegraph.” . Rome has prdered an increase of farm production at all costs, -A* ® action is typical of what the satellites are doing, and the difficulties con--1 fronting the fairly welLordered Italian economy are an indication of the troubles lacing the lesser fry on the outskirts of the Axis. , Italy is to increase the area under cereal cultivation by 15 per cent. •Areas,are being ploughed up which hitherto have been regarded as suitable only for pastures. This has inevitably meant alpine regions, which can be properly exploited only by ™ extensive and generous use isers—but it is the impossibility of stepping up artificial fertiliser productionPwhich has prevented Italy so far from intensifying output from the ex ISt Other r measures 5 include omission of the fallow year in crop rotation and the transfer to land work of tens of thousands of women hitherto employed in the textile industry. It may be noted, in view of intensified air attack on the Italian coast, that Italy's food position is specially threatened 5 by°the P Nation of most of her 944 grain silos in port areas. Increased farm output is certainly redded by the Nazi authorities as thf 3 supreme task of European agriculture Special courses have beep arranged ip Croatia, for mstence. for Nazi district peasant fuehrers io harangue the peasantry on the political importance of their work. . , As to the Reich itself, in an article in the N.S. Landpost Dr. Kurt tiauss man has said that since the use of more machinery and fertilisers is hmited improved working methods and suitable control of production now take first place in the drive for outputShortage of skilled agricultural- labour has meant the increased employment of prisoners of war and foreign labour, which, since most of it ishos tile, tends to diminish output and leads to complications where unreliable hands are given the job of seed clean-; bottle-necks are play-

ins havoc with the timely arrival of seeds, fertilisers and promised implements. One outstanding difficulty is presented by the question whether the area under oil-producing plants should be increased at the expense- of cereals. The question is directly related to the precarious fat situation Norwegian fishermen’s sabotage on the one hand, and the hoarding of oil-seeds by Balkan and French farmers on the other, are going to have a marked effect on Germany’s bread supply. The Nazi Government has not. in fact been able to create the ‘‘flexible’” agricultural surplus so much to be desired, which could be varied to meet needs. In. their

plans they had looked * iraC t W® Ukraine, but that country anything minimum neccssary to hi OCCUP at }2, population and the^j o iis of ** has left most other P°£' cry ing ° u ‘ Nazi-controlled terntor for food.